Bilic wants to keep the Spanish goalkeeper despite signing Joe Hart to be the club’s number one next season. But Newcastle and Crystal Palace are both interested in signing him – and both would probably offer him more of a chance of first team football than he will get at the London Stadium next term.

Rafa Benitez is looking to bring in a minimum of four players before the transfer window snaps shut but the club are spinning plates in an effort to get their business done. Players will have to be moved on while Newcastle will clearly utilise the loan market to make the most of their budget.

Early hopes of persuading Pepe Reina to return to England became complicated and now Benitez is looking to the West Ham stopper as a viable alternative to Rob Elliot and Freddie Woodman, who look likely to form the goalkeeper group next term with Karl Darlow and Tim Krul facing possible exits.

West Ham's Adrian has been targeted by Newcastle United (Image: Getty Images Europe)

Bilic’s comments to Football.London will hardly dampen speculation about Adrian’s future. The West Ham boss said: “I spoke with Randolph and Adrian and we were more than happy with them. We wanted to keep one of them to have three keepers. It was not necessary to sell either of them. Nobody wants to be third choice, of course.

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“Now that Randy went to Middlesbrough, it’s Joe and Adrian and the situation with Adrian is that we would love to keep him. We rate him, we like him, we would like to offer him a new contract and hopefully he is going to accept it and stay.

“I am confident he will stay but on the other hand, Adrian is ambitious. He is very polite, a proper sportsman, a long time a West Ham and the club is very respectful towards him. We want to help him. It’s a challenge between him and Joe, hopefully he is going to stay.

“If he is desperate to be guaranteed to be number one we will try to help him.